If one were to compile a list of
contemporary American pessimists, the list would be short, though Thomas
Ligotti's name would likely be on it. To most who are familiar with his work,
Ligotti is known as an author of horror fiction.

His 1986 debut Songs of a Dead Dreamer immediately set him apart from his contemporaries.
Filled with dark, lyrical prose, it displayed an unabashed appreciation for the
tradition of the Gothic. It was composed of short texts that were difficult to
categorise, and that barely contained narrative and plot.

When it was published, Songs of a Dead Dreamer stood in direct contrast to much horror fiction of
the 1980s, characterised as it was by slasher-style gore and violence, and a
more brutalist approach to language. Ligotti's writing, by contrast, tended
more towards an effusive, contorted prose that revealed almost nothing – though
each of his pieces was steeped in a sombre, funereal mood more reminiscent of
the ‘supernatural horror’ tradition of Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. All
the horrors – the real horrors – remained hidden in a stark, unhuman nether
region beyond all comprehension, and yet instilled directly in the flesh of the
narrators or characters.

In a career that spans almost 30
years, Ligotti's work has remained committed to this tradition of supernatural
horror and, given the trends, fads, and wild mood swings of the horror genre,
such a commitment is an admirable anomaly. Which brings me to Ligotti's most recent
book, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race.
Ligotti fans may find this book puzzling at first. For one thing, it is not a
work of horror fiction; for that matter, it's not a work of fiction at all. But
to call it a collection of essays or a treatise of philosophy doesn't quite do
it justice either. Ligotti does comment at length on the horror genre and on a
number of authors, from Anne Radcliffe and Joseph Conrad to Poe and Lovecraft.
But Conspiracy is not
just a writer's personal opinion of other writers. Similarly, Ligotti does
spend much of the book reflecting on pessimism, reminding us of the freshness
of grumpy thinkers like Arthur Schopenhauer, while also pointing to more
obscure or forgotten thinkers, such as the Norwegian philosopher and Alpinist
Peter Wessel Zapffe. But Ligotti's approach is much too eccentric and
uncompromising to be considered academic philosophy, and as a book Conspiracy is unencumbered by
reams of footnotes or jargon-heavy vocabulary. Finally, Ligotti does address a
number of topical issues in Conspiracy –
research in cognitive neuroscience, the natalism/anti-natalism debate, global
warming and over population, transhumanism, Terror Management Therapy, the
popularity of Buddhism, and the self-help boom, among others. But the aim of
the book is not simply to be topical, nor to present a ‘pop’ introduction to a
difficult topic.

So then, what kind of book is Conspiracy? It is first and foremost a book about pessimism; but
it is also a pessimistic book. While it contains critical insights into the
heights and pitfalls of pessimist thinking, it also contains stunning
indictments of our many pretentions to being human: ‘As for us humans, we reek
of our own sense of being something special’; ‘What is most uncanny about the
self is that no one has yet been able to present the
least evidence of it. Conspiracy constantly
hovers around that boundary between writing about pessimism and simply writing pessimism, and nowhere is this more evident than in
Ligotti's own brand of pessimism, which is at once uncompromising and absurd:

After a silence from publication for a decade, which he explains
here,
including a harrowing medical emergency, Ligotti published The Spectral Link a slim volume consisting of
two stories Metaphysica Morum and The Small People [each about 50 pages in length] which I found very
unsettling, almost like being in a lucid nightmare. Ligotti describes these two
stories as -

As with
many, if not most, of my stories, “Metaphysica Morum” is autobiography
exaggerated.

The
narrator of “Metaphysica Morum” harps on my euthanasia fantasy, except for him
it is in connection with longstanding emotional problems having a source beyond
the natural. For some people, all experiences of an intensity far surpassing
that of ordinary life provoke a need for expression. Another dimension or level
of reality opens up, and they begin ranting to a purpose. A few may propound
visions as in the biblical Book of Revelation, horrible visions whose author
must have felt an insatiable need to make believable and find credence in his
readers. Some believe these visions and give them credence; others do not.
Which of these postures is assumed could not possibly concern the scribbler of
these visions. He has seen. That is enough. This is the state of the narrator
of “Metaphysica Morum” and conveying such a state, as I’ve said in interviews
and essays, is what supernatural horror fiction does better than any other kind
of literature.

I’ve written things in the wake of a previous work, and I
think “The Small People” was one of them. It really hit me all at once, and I
barely had to think about it either structurally or thematically. “Metaphysica
Morum” derived straight from my hospital episode and “The Small People”
indirectly. After writing the former story, I was still in an elevated mood
from my surgeries. And if I could keep writing, I thought I could keep my
elevated mood alive. And only in an elevated mood can I write about the worst.
Only in a good mood can I reflect upon what’s in store for me, such as the
hospital episode, without fear of overwhelming my consciousness. Only in a good
mood can I think about my existence or existence itself without thinking about
wanting to be euthanized by anesthesia. I believe this is how it is for many
people, though I can’t say how many, and if I claim it is a great many then I
would be derided by those for whom this is not how it is. In any case, I think
it’s safe to say that the carryover from my hospital episode was more literal
in “Metaphysica Morum” than in “The Small People.”

I find that I can only read Ligotti in small doses, due
to some of the unsettling atmosphere his work creates in my consciousness, and
though a writer of poetry, short stories and the occasional novelette, his work
packs a disturbing punch. Most of his work is out of print, so it’s a little
expensive collecting his earlier work, but well worth it – if you like the ‘cosmic
end’ of horror genre, and also your world-view to be questioned, then Ligotti
is a writer you should explore.

Recently I acquired the Ligotti collection The Nightmare Factory, a collection that
showcases a vast array of some of his most disturbing fiction, opening with the
truly unsettling tale ‘The Frolic’.

A WARNING – ‘The
Frolic’ though far from gratuitous, is a very distressing tale that concerns
child murder and is very unsettling and is the only fiction from the pen of
Thomas Ligotti that has been filmed, and there is a link to view this creepy 20
minute film below.

Wonder
Entertainment released a special collector’s edition of Thomas
Ligotti’s short story “The Frolic” in a book that comes bundled
with a DVD — a 24 minute adaptation of that story directed by Jacob Cooney. Get
it soon, because this product is limited to 1000 copies, and there are signed
editions available. Remarkably, this is the very first cinematic adaptation of
Ligotti’s work — and I must say, it’s an excellent treatment, co-scripted by
Ligotti himself, intensely directed, and well-acted.

In my Goreletter
reviews, I try to shine light on (mostly independent) “print”
books because I feel that other media already get plenty of press and
attention. At first I didn’t want to review The Frolic here because it is a new
film, but the truth is this edition is more of a multimedia “story event” than
your usual DVD release. Here you’ll get a full-blown celebration of the short
story in a perfect-bound paperback which features not only a “newly revised
version” of “The Frolic” (which originally appeared in Ligotti’s first
collection, Songs of a
Dead Dreamer), but also an eyebrow-raising introduction by the
author, the complete screenplay for the adaptation by Ligotti and his
screenwriting partner Brandon Trenz, and also enlightening interviews with
everyone involved with the production of the film. Indeed, the book is
everything that would normally appear on a “special features” section of an
ordinary DVD, but here the printed word is so well-respected that it truly
celebrates Ligotti’s mastery as a storyteller above all.

In a nutshell, the short story itself is about the
chilling effect a child killer named “John Doe” has had on his prison house
psychologist, David Munck. The killer, who justifies his actions by claiming he
steals children away to some unearthly place so they can “frolic” together,
disturbs Munck at the core, chipping away at his “objective” scientific
worldview and replacing it with the supernatural. This foments into sheer
terror when Doe refers to a “Colleen” during an interview — a name that sounds
a lot like his own daughter’s, “Noreen,” a name Doe couldn’t possibly know.
Ligotti does a masterful job of fracturing Munck’s world, from his faith in
science and his career to his family relations, and much of the horror of the
story comes from its inevitable, unstoppable conclusion.

1 comment:

GAH, this book. I don't know what to say besides I'm kind of in shock in a good way. But also a bad way depending on how you look at it. Now that I've read this there's no going back to being a comfortable sheep in the herd, I guess. This should be required reading for everyone. It makes too much sense. Just read it.

I think I exist, but have no proof except what I write here

Ali Karim - is Assistant Editor at Shots eZine, a contributing editor at January Magazine & The Rap Sheet and writes for Crimespree magazine, Deadly Pleasures and Mystery Readers International and is an associate member of The Crime Writers Association [CWA], International Thriller Writers [ITW] and the Private Eye Writers of America [PWA]. Karim contributed to ‘Dissecting Hannibal Lecter’ ed. Benjamin Szumskyj [McFarland Press] a critical examination of the works of Thomas Harris, as well as The Greenwood Encyclopedia of British Crime Fiction [ed. Barry Forshaw]. Karim has contributed to ITW 100 Thriller Novels due out in 2010.
Karim been three times nominated for a Anthony Award [2007, 2008 & 2009] as well as The Spinetingler Award in 2008 for special contributions to the Crime and Thriller genre.